Off The Beaten Lane: AI Challenges In MOBAs Beyond Player Control

TL;DR

This paper explores the unique AI challenges in MOBAs beyond gameplay, emphasizing cultural context and proposing projects to address community-specific issues.

Contribution

It introduces a broad perspective on MOBA AI challenges, extending beyond game-playing to include community and cultural aspects, and suggests concrete research directions.

Findings

Identifies key challenges in MOBA AI development.

Proposes specific AI projects for community engagement.

Highlights the importance of cultural context in MOBA AI research.

Abstract

MOBAs represent a huge segment of online gaming and are growing as both an eSport and a casual genre. The natural starting point for AI researchers interested in MOBAs is to develop an AI to play the game better than a human - but MOBAs have many more challenges besides adversarial AI. In this paper we introduce the reader to the wider context of MOBA culture, propose a range of challenges faced by the community today, and posit concrete AI projects that can be undertaken to begin solving them.